According to Advertising Age, at last year’s South by Southwest festival Bezos “attentively and noticeably [took] notes near the front row while Zappos’s Tony Hsieh talked about his company’s culture, values and service. Considering that Amazon paid nearly a billion dollars to procure ownership of an online shoe company, what did Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos see in Zappos that he had to have?

One answer is social media expertise. This is exemplified by Zappos Twitter feed (which has over one million followers), a perfect example of incorporating design into social media, Hsieh channels transparent communication to his customers that is sorely lacking in most corporate transmissions. Without design in such disclosures, you’re left with little more than a system where “duct tape and bubble gum hold fragile tactics.” As Dachis Corporation founder and media designer David Armano notes,”This means moving beyond our current definition of “social media” as a PR tool and thinking of it as something that can evolve the way we work, communicate, interact and collaborate at a core business level.”

Zappos has leveraged these platforms to change the way they run an online business, finding value and brand loyalty in a place most would never consider as a media channel: customer service.

This is Zappos’ deepest purpose and its most forthright. As Michael Strong explains on OpenForum, moving from the “traditional model of increasing shareholder value to a broader model of increasing value for all your organization’s stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, investors, the community, and the environment)” is a main tenet of conscious capitalism.  Zappos has done this with its extreme commitment to customer service, no matter what the initial cost, and a team model that values individualism, empowerment, accountability, and trust.

It will be very interesting to see how Amazon utilizes such a strong, built-in corporate culture as it merges Zappos with its existing operations. As a forward-thinking and successful retail giant in its own right, perhaps it will serve as a truly innovative model for corporations of the future to look to for inspiration.